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Monday, May 2, 2011

Last month I was invited to join the Amazon Vine program. They send me a newsletter with a list of items, mostly books, and I get to choose what I want to review. I receive the items at no cost and I'm expected to review them objectively, whether it's negative or positive. My first pick was Strings Attached by Judy Blundell and I reviewed it on April 3.

Promise Me is my second pick and I chose it for a very special reason. I recently lost a friend to breast cancer. She fought the good fight for five years. There were many battles, and she faced each one with courage and good humor.

Being so close to this horrible disease, I wanted to know more about Susan G. Komen and her sister Nancy who founded the organization named for her - Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

This is a compelling book about a wonderful family struck by a horrible disease. It's the story of two devoted sisters, Susan Komen, and her fight for life, and Nancy Brinker, who had such a huge impact on the breast cancer movement. The book starts out a bit slow, with an account of how the girls grew up. Family members are well described. I was disappointed at the lack of pictures, but it didn't detract from the story.

It's also a history of breast cancer treatment through the years, which was enlightening. We've come a long way – but there's still a long way to go.

The book was written with a collaborator, Joni Rodgers, whose style is easy to read as well as informative. And while the book is uplifting, it still brought the tears - and more so, having gone through this struggle with someone.

It's truly an inspiring story and a great tribute, well worth reading.

****

Below is a product description from the Amazon site:Suzy and Nancy Goodman were more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, and partners in the grand adventure of life. For three decades, nothing could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not miles. Then Suzy got sick. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1977; three agonizing years later, at thirty-six, she died.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Goodman girls were raised in postwar Peoria, Illinois, by parents who believed that small acts of charity could change the world. Suzy was the big sister—the homecoming queen with an infectious enthusiasm and a generous heart. Nancy was the little sister—the tomboy with an outsized sense of justice who wanted to right all wrongs. The sisters shared makeup tips, dating secrets, plans for glamorous fantasy careers. They spent one memorable summer in Europe discovering a big world far from Peoria. They imagined a long life together—one in which they’d grow old together surrounded by children and grandchildren.

Suzy’s diagnosis shattered that dream.

In 1977, breast cancer was still shrouded in stigma and shame. Nobody talked about early detection and mammograms. Nobody could even say the words “breast” and “cancer” together in polite company, let alone on television news broadcasts. With Nancy at her side, Suzy endured the many indignities of cancer treatment, from the grim, soul-killing waiting rooms to the mistakes of well-meaning but misinformed doctors. That’s when Suzy began to ask Nancy to promise. To promise to end the silence. To promise to raise money for scientific research. To promise to one day cure breast cancer for good. Big, shoot-for-the-moon promises that Nancy never dreamed she could fulfill. But she promised because this was her beloved sister.

I promise, Suzy. . . . Even if it takes the rest of my life.

Suzy’s death—both shocking and senseless—created a deep pain in Nancy that never fully went away. But she soon found a useful outlet for her grief and outrage. Armed only with a shoebox filled with the names of potential donors, Nancy put her formidable fund-raising talents to work and quickly discovered a groundswell of grassroots support. She was aided in her mission by the loving tutelage of her husband, restaurant magnate Norman Brinker, whose dynamic approach to entrepreneurship became Nancy’s model for running her foundation. Her account of how she and Norman met, fell in love, and managed to achieve the elusive “true marriage of equals” is one of the great grown-up love stories among recent memoirs.

Nancy’s mission to change the way the world talked about and treated breast cancer took on added urgency when she was herself diagnosed with the disease in 1984, a terrifying chapter in her life that she had long feared. Unlike her sister, Nancy survived and went on to make Susan G. Komen for the Cure into the most influential health charity in the country and arguably the world. A pioneering force in cause-related marketing, SGK turned the pink ribbon into a symbol of hope everywhere. Each year, millions of people worldwide take part in SGK Race for the Cure events. And thanks to the more than $1.5 billion spent by SGK for cutting-edge research and community programs, a breast cancer diagnosis today is no longer a death sentence. In fact, in the time since Suzy’s death, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer has risen from 74 percent to 98 percent.

Promise Me is a deeply moving story of family and sisterhood, the dramatic “30,000-foot view” of the democratization of a disease, and a soaring affirmative to the question: Can one person truly make a difference?

Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer